NoWaste: the ‘beautifully simple’ app you didn’t know you needed

With more than 1.3 billion tonnes of food wasted annually across the globe and throughout the whole food chain, food waste is becoming more and more an urgent issue for both businesses and private households. How to address such stringent problem in a way that is fun and educative for consumers – and can get them to save a good bunch of money too?

iOS developer Kasper Hjortsballe seems to have found an answer to this question. In 2014, still a college student, he came up with the idea to develop an app that could help consumers track their food inventories and manage their food storage. This is how the NoWaste free app came to life.

The app approaches the problem of food waste starting from people’s own houses: it allows you to keep a list of the items in your freezer, fridge and pantry and helps you to easily to organize your food by tracking expiration dates. It also offers the possibility to make a shopping list and a meal plan which can also be shared with your family and friends, thus helping avoid unnecessary purchases.

We asked Kasper, the one man behind the success of NoWaste, what makes the app special and how it will make the future of food brighter.

Where does the idea for the NoWaste app come from?

“I had just taken up the hobby to develop my own apps when, one day, I came across an app called My Freezer. Although very efficient, I thought it was still lacking a tasteful look. Also, its developers weren’t taking into consideration any of the users’ suggestions and feedback. So I started to work on a similar app that, taking into account such feedback, offered optimised features and a better graphic interface – and that was the beginning of NoWaste.

“In May this year I quit my job as an educational psychologist and started to work on NoWaste full-time. Now there are plans to move from iPad and iPhone only to an Android and web version of the app.”

What makes NoWaste special?

“It aims for a beautiful simplicity– a simplicity that aims to give users a certain ‘satisfaction’ with their eating and saving accomplishments. Look is not everything, though: when it comes to its features, being able to track and improve your food waste percentage on a monthly basis is a brand-new thing in the world of consumer food waste.”

Besides tracking your own waste, the app also adds your progress to the community stats, making you part of the wider fight against food waste.

How would you describe NoWaste in 3 words only?

“YOUR EFFORT COUNTS.”

What results has NoWaste achieved to date?

“Since March this year, 69.937 food items have been eaten by the community, with an estimated saving of $20.281. ‘Only’ 13,5% of the food registered in the app has been wasted, which is pretty good compared the average (20-25%). However, community stats for November 2017 are even more promising, with only 5% waste recorded.

“In the future, NoWaste wants to go the extra mile: not just achieving higher standards in preventing food waste, but also making this ‘saving attitude’ become an integral part of people’s lives and daily routines. Conscious choices require a lot more energy than habits do – NoWaste tries to nudge people to internalise new healthy habits.”

Kasper says: “When the media are addressing the issue of food waste, they often throw huge, overwhelming numbers at you, making your efforts to reduce food waste seem insignificant. You are trying to eat up your two riping carrots on a Monday morning, while at the same time 1,3 billion tons of food are going to waste globally every year. As Tyrion Lannister says in Game of Thrones ‘People’s minds aren’t made for problems that large’.”